FOOTBALL seems to have become a down-graded priority on ABC’s “Monday Night Football.” The higher goals now seem to be selling John Madden, selling what John Madden sells, selling Disney (ABC/ESPN) programming, and selling the kind of incivility that has laid sports low.

Monday, for the second straight telecast, MNF aired a post-play replay of a player doing nothing else except showing off. This week’s was tape of Bucs’ DE Simeon Rice vaingloriously pounding his chest. That was the entire replay, thus it was shown for no other purpose than to reward another show-off.

And that very replay found its merry way into ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” the next night, for no other purpose than to show a guy showing off. Ahh, the wonderful world of Disney.

How can we expect athletes, especially those such as Randy Moss, with vulnerable upbringings and corresponding psyches, to demonstrate even minimal regard for their teams and teammates when such TV-delivered, TV-fortified messages remain a constant?

Then there was this production gem from Monday’s telecast: Late in the third quarter of a 13-7 game, Bucs’ punt returner Karl Williams was apparently bumped and pushed several yards backward after receiving a fair catch. The home crowd erupted in anticipation of a flag. None was thrown.

At that point, Al Michaels began to deliver a promo for next Monday’s telecast. Suddenly, we heard a loud, angry and simultaneous reaction from the crowd.

Michaels interrupted his recitation of the promo to tell us that the background noise we’re hearing is in response to a replay of the fair catch, which had just appeared on the large in-stadium screens. Clearly, the fans felt that the replay proved that a flag was warranted.

Michaels then finished the promo. And that was that. We, at home – unlike those in the stadium – never saw a replay of that contentious fair catch, late in the third quarter of a close game. The promo took precedence over the game.

And now, with Madden on board, there are the weekly, info-mercialized inserts that try to apply the live game to the computerized players found in Madden’s namesake video games. These inserts are forced, useless and shameless.

And gosh, there seems to be an awful lot of cut-aways from the field just to show Madden in the booth. Yep, that’s him alright.

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Randy Moss’ latest on and off-field transgressions have provided TV sports reports the opportunity to air a compendium of video clips displaying several of Moss’ in-game hassles, including the one, three seasons ago, when, from the sideline, he squirted the contents of a water bottle on a side judge.

Moss, in a Vikings’ playoff loss to the Rams, televised that day by Fox, was upset with the side judge for a previous no call on an incomplete pass thrown toward him.

Moss, who had been fined $10,000 earlier in the season for verbally abusing an official – after teammate Cris Carter scored a TD, Moss continued to argue about a previous play, one that involved him – was fined $25,000 for the playoff episode, in addition to the Vikings being penalized 15 yards for Moss’ misconduct in a playoff game.

But while the video of that chapter was resurrected this week, the audio wasn’t. And that’s too bad. After Fox found, then ran tape of the sideline Gatorade bottle incident, Fox’s A Team, Pat Summerall and John Madden, chuckled. They found it amusing.

Moss will start this week, but pandering to superstars is nothing new.

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What used to be called “Cadilac-ing” – players slowing up to milk a home run or an ahead-of-the-pack TD run – is now indelicately referred to by players as “pimping.” And pimping, in football games at all levels, is proliferating.

And pimping, before this college and/or NFL season has ended, is going to cost a team, and big. Someone is going to slow up at the 10-yard line to pimp, and he’s going to lose the ball – and the game – to a blindside hit, perhaps one delivered by a player named John.

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The state of sports, here, there and everywhere, yesterday – as seen on USA Network – found Ryder Cup U.S. captain Curtis Strange and Team Europe captain Sam Torrance applying virtually all the words in their opening ceremony speeches to an appeal for sportsmanship among players and spectators.

But USA Network’s promos that followed, sold the Ryder Cup as “unrestrained,” Us vs. Them warfare.